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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 11, 1996)
. . News Digest PAGE 2 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11,1996 -—----—--i -- South Africa constitution guarantees equal rights SHARPEVILLE, South Africa (AP)—President Nelson Mandela vis ited the site of one of South Africa’s . most notorious massacres Tuesday— International Human Rights Day — and signed a constitution into law guar anteeing equal rights to all races. The signing culminated more than six years of negotiations between white and black leaders cm the shape and ide ology of post-apartheid South Africa. “By our presence here today, we solemnly honor the pledge we made to ourselves and to the world, that South Africa shall redeem herself and thereby widen the frontiers of human freedom,” said Mandela, who hoisted the docu ment above his head to the cheers of an audience of4,000 people. “As we close a chapter of exclu sion and a chapter of heroic struggle, we reaffirm our determination to build a society of which each of us can be proud as South Africans, as Africans and as citizens of the world,” he said. One of the most liberal constitu tions in the world, the 150-page char ter is based on an interim document that took effect with the nation’s first all race election in 1994. Mandela’s Afri can National Congress won the vote to gain power, making him the nation’s first black president. Organizers chose the Sharpeville black township south of Johannesburg for the signing for two reasons. It was where police gunned down 69 black protesters in a 1960 massacre . Sharpeyille also is part of Vereeniging, the town where the treaty ending the Anglo-Boer war was signed in 1902. The constitution, written in two years by an elected Constitutional As sembly, includes a Bill of Rights guar anteeing equal rights for all. The original version of the new constitution was rejected by the Con stitutional Court, the nation’s highest, for violating principles of the interim charter. Most of the problems were minor or technical in nature, and a re vised version gained approval from the court last week. While most major parties in South Africa support the document, the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party boy cotted the assembly that drafted it. But Inkatha, which fears losing power to the ANC in its stronghold of the tradi tional Zulu homeland, has said it will abide by the new constitution. -—-^ Unabomber suspect enters innocent plea via video NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Unabomber suspect Theodore J. Kaczynski pleaded innocent Tues day via video to charges he sent the mail bombr that killed an advertis ing executive exactly two years ago. Kaczynski’s plea from Califor nia was made through a live hookup to the federal courthouse here, where Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise presided in a courtroom packed with spectators, journalists and court workers. Among those present was Susan Mosser, whose 50-year-old hus band, Thomas, was killed when he opened a package containing a bomb on Dec. 10, 1994, in his northern New Jersey home. In Sacramento, where Kaczynski has been jailed since early summer, the U.S. Marshals Service moved Kaczynski to the county public defender’s office for the cross-country arraignment. The former Berkeley math pro fessor has pleaded innocent to four Unabomber attacks that killed two people in Sacramento. Prosecutors have said they hope to decide before January whether to seek the death penalty, which Kaczynski could also face for the two California bombing deaths. Debevoise also heard arguments on a defense request to transfer the New Jersey case to Sacramento, where a November trial date has been set. Kaczynski’s lawyers are seeking a single trial there on all the Unabomber charges. Prosecutors last week objected to a transfer, and proposed that Debevoise set a June 30 trial date on the New Jersey charges. They said it could be finished in time for the November trial in California. Debevoise reserved decision on the transfer request, and rejected a June 30 trial date as unrealistic. He said if he decides not to transfer the New Jersey case, that trial would follow the California trial. | Kaczynski, 54, left a promising academic career and became a her mit. He was arrested April 3 at his spartan cabin in Lincoln, Mont., and is being held without bail. I * i Federal authorities believe he used bombs to kill three people and injure 23 others between 1978 and 1995. In a letter published in The New York Times on April 26, 1995, the Unabomber wrote that “we blew up 1 Thomas Mosser” because he was an executive with Burson-Marsteller. The letter said the company helped Exxon clean up its public image af ter the Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Burson-Marsteller has denied work ing on the spill for Exxon. , ■ . ■ stock!* You can always on Nebraska Bookstore to give you the best prices for your books. Just be sure to bring your textbooks in for the Textbook Buyback before December 22, 1996. 4 / " ‘. ; : v ; - v' . - ^ ’ *Some exclusions apply. See store for details. » - * rr-ii . - - -- j * v- ■'■ ■ *. ' ' t Polish poet accepts ’96 Nobel Peace Prize STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Wislawa Szymborska, celebrated for her “beautiful, deep and subtle poetry,” accepted the 1996 Nobel Prize in lit erature today with a standing ovation from the audience in the Stockholm Concert Hall. Three hours after the Nobel Peace Prize was presented to two East Timorese freedom champions in Oslo, Norway, the other 10 Nobel laureates accepted their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm. Szymborska smiled slightly as she listened to the praise for her electrify ing poetry. “Dear Wislawa Szymborska, I would like to thank you for giving us this beautiful, deep and subtle poetry,” Swedish author Birgitta Trotzig said in introducing the 73-year-old Polish poet to the audience of 1,800. Szymborska then stepped forward and accepted the prize from the king. Behind him sat Queen Silvia. The famously shy author, who says she’s uncomfortable in a room with more than a dozen people, drew a sym pathetic laugh as she apparently be came confused on how to bow after receiving the award. Each of the recipients was directed to bow three times to the accompani ment of a brass fanfare—(Mice to the king, once to the rows of medal-be decked academics on stage and once to the audience. The pomp-filled ceremony was in terspersed with music by Mozart and Sibelius and the familiar, lilting “Morn ing Mood” section of Grieg.*s Peer Gynt suite. It marked the 100th anni versary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist who funded the prizes in his will. The first to receive their prizes in Stockholm were David Lee and Rob ert Richardson, both of Cornell Uni versity, and Douglas Osheroffof Stanford University, who shared the physics award for their discovery of i——*—;---— superfluidity in helium-3. Peter Doherty, an Australian now working at St. Jude’sChildren’s Re search Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., and RolfZinkemagel of Switzerland received the 1996 Nobel medicine pize for pioneering work on the body’s immune system. They discovered how the immune • system recognizes infected cells - a finding that could lead to new vaccines and therapies for cancer, diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Harold Kroto of Britain’s Univer sity of Sussex and Robert Curl and Richard Smalley of Rice University in the United States, received the chem istry prize for discovering carbon at oms bound in the shape of soccer balls. The economics prize was awarded to James Mirrlees of Britain’s Cam bridge University and William Vickrey of Columbia University, but Vickrey died the same week the prize was an nounced. They were recognized for their work in “asymmetric informa tion” - transactions in which one party knows things the other doesn’t. A friend of Vickrey’s, Lowell Har ris, accepted the award on the behalf of the deceased laureate. Unlike the others, he bowed only once. The laureates were to give speeches at the three-hour banquet following the prize ceremony. Although all laureates received standing ovations, Szymborska was the clear favorite of the audience and of photographers. “Bureaucrats and bus passengers respond with a touch oflncredulity and alarm when they find out that they’re dealing with a poet,” she said in her prize lecture last week. Each prize is worth $1.12 million, money that is shared in cases of mul tiple winners. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, excep for the eco nomics prize which was established in 1968. Nebraskan A ^^^AXNUMBEFhTSrS^1™111111^™ The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 1444)80) is published by the UNL Publicalions Board, Nebraska Union 34.1400 R St . Lincoln. NE 68588-0448. Monday through Friday during the academic year; weekly during summer sessions. 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